1. Field of the Invention
The invention is concerned with the field of power semiconductor components and relates to a bilaterally controllable thyristor according to the preamble of the first claim.
2. Discussion of Background
A thyristor of the generic type is described for example in German Patent Application DE 44 39 012 A1. That document concerns a bilaterally controllable thyristor in which two reverse-connected parallel thyristor structures are integrated in a semiconductor substrate. The thyristor structures are decoupled on the component surfaces by a respective isolation region with a carrier lifetime that is preferably reduced. An isolation region between the thyristor structures is principally necessary for two reasons: firstly, in the event of one thyristor structure being triggered, no parasitic current paths to the other thyristor structure should be produced; also, no interaction between the two thyristor structures should occur during commutation. Although the solution according to the prior art may already be sufficient in many cases, undesirable migration of charge carriers from one thyristor structure that has already triggered to the other thyristor structure that has not yet triggered means that the switched-off thyristor structure can be destroyed by local, uncontrollable triggering.